The Beginning
The tenth hour of the third of November was a completely normal hour for nearly everyone in the world. The sun was shining in some places; in others, it was snowing, or perhaps raining, or perhaps just cloudy. People died as they were supposed to, and people were born as they were supposed to. Children cried. Weddings were in the process of being conducted. Divorces proceeded. In all accounts, the tenth hour of the third of November was a completely normal hour.
Until it wasn’t.
At the fifty-ninth minute, just before the clock was supposed to roll over into the eleventh hour, there was a sudden and strange phenomenon. Twenty-eight women around the world were suddenly giving birth when they had not even been pregnant the day prior.
A trio of eclectic billionaires who doubled as part-time scholars dubbed these women the Sacred Twenty-Eight, promising that this was the start of something new, something holy.
And so, there were twenty-eight more babies in the world when there should not have been.
In an attempt to prove that these babies brought promises of a new and improved future, the strange and affluent billionaires set their efforts on procuring said babies.
Cygnus Black published advertisements in as many of the European papers as he could, translating them into nearly every language that was available. He provided these women with a phone number to call, promising them anything they asked for. At the end of the day, he got three babies. All girls.
Orion and Walburga Black worked together in their search. Unlike Cygnus, they sought out these women, traveling to meet with them face to face. Though they weren’t the kindest pair, it was the money that spoke to these women, not the promise of a loving family for their babies. At the end of the day, they got two babies. Both boys.
Three girls and two boys.
Five all together.
The Nobel and Most Ancient Black Academy’s new generation had arrived. And they came screaming and crying the whole way.
During the early years of rearing these five children, the elder Blacks did not give them names. Not yet.
Walburga Black believed a name to be a privilege, a sign of respect.
Cygnus and Orion Black believed a name to be too human for the subjects of their studies.
And so, they were numbered off. One through five.
Number Two was insistent that the numbers meant nothing. Number One was vehemently against this idea for most of the children’s youth. Most. Number One liked to aggravate the others, flaunting the status of being “number one” as a way to make the other children listen. After Number Five tricked Number One into walking off a balcony, the flaunting stopped. But there was still a clear hierarchy within the children.
For the first ten years of their lives, the children remained nameless.
Within the first month of caring for these children, the special circumstances regarding their birth started to make sense. The reason their births were otherworldly was because the children themselves were otherworldly.
Each of the children possessed a unique ability that they were able to harness at will, though there was clearly a need for training. So that’s what they did.
Early in their youth, the children were taught martial arts alongside speaking, shooting practice alongside reading, and knife fighting alongside writing. Vocabulary words consisted of “adapt” and “block” and “disarm”. They’d practice their handwriting skills by writing lines from strategy books such as The Art of War – quotes like “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak” or “If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete”. They’d write sentences like these over and over again while Walburga stood behind them, scrutinizing their script, calling out every mistake.
They learned how to fight alongside each other and against each other. A team, the Blacks taught, was important, though it was only as strong as its weakest member. There was no room for failure, no room for giving up. Every scrimmage was expected to play out with the same desperation of a real fight. The only way to improve was to give it your all, no matter if the enemy was another child or one of the adults.
Adaption was taught early. If they could not rise beyond their circumstances, they were expected to change their circumstances. Reality, they were told, was nothing but what they made it. And Number Five could quite literally make it.
They practiced their abilities daily, honing them with care. Cygnus and Orion always paid special attention during these types of lessons. They meticulously researched and measured the extent to which the children could use their abilities, constantly pushing them or reigning them in where they saw fit. If they thought Number Three was pushing too hard, they’d nip it in the bud early. If Number Two was being too hesitant, they would snap and lecture about the danger of holding oneself back.
It was Druella, the robot nurse, who finally named them all when they were ten. She was rather obsessed with astronomy – always studying star maps and looking into the heavens, and that much was evident in her naming process. Though the children appreciated this small act of love, rare to come by in the Black Academy, it made adult life fairly difficult. No one could ever spell their names correctly. No one could pronounce them right on the first attempt. Often, they were questioned about the origins of their names, and there’s only so much that can be said about the entire situation before you start to sound crazy.
Fluency was expected in French, English, and Latin. Conversations were conducted in French with Walburga and in English with Cygnus. If Orion were to speak with the children at all, it would be a toss-up between the two languages depending on the topic of conversation. If it was personal, it was English. A clinical language to Orion. More meaningless. If it was a command or an order, it was French. He was always crueler in his native tongue. He was always more, as well.
When they were thirteen, the children were sent on their first mission. There was a robbery at the bank. Orion had been scanning the police blotter for weeks, waiting for something like this to occur, and it was finally the perfect moment. It was time for the most recent generation of the Nobel and Most Ancient Black Academy to make their first appearance. To finally show people the true power of the Sacred Twenty-Eight children.
Number 2 had gone in first, quickly followed by the others with the help of Number 4.
The fight was over within minutes. Amateur robbers had nothing against extensively trained thirteen-year-olds desperate to prove themselves.
They emerged from the bank, leaving four dead robbers in their wake, grinning triumphantly. Cygnus, Orion, and Walburga joined them at the steps of the bank, chins raised proudly.
“There is a new world order,” Orion announced, speaking to the cameras and reporters standing in front of him. People were snapping photos left and right, the bright flashes going off rapidly. “I present to you the Black Academy. My cousins and I’s adopted children, daughters and sons of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. As promised, they are as extraordinary as the circumstances of their birth.”
The newspapers and news reports had gone crazy with it. Reporters were knocking on the doors of the Black Manor during every hour of the day. Walburga had sent Kreacher, the strange, alien-like housecleaner, to clear them out. He'd frightened them with his large ears, oddly formed shape, and a particularly nasty-sounding growl.
Number Two had found it funny that anyone would be scared of Kreacher in the first place. Number Four, on the other hand, understood their fear. Kreacher hadn’t ever liked any of the children besides Number Two. He was tolerant, at best, of the rest of them. At best.
For three years, they were the new world order.
They completed missions per Cygnus, Orion, and Walburga’s request, always bringing pride to the Black name. They were constantly on the covers of magazines. Interviews, too, were everywhere, always cropping up in strange places. People have always been and will always be fascinated by the things they don’t understand. They were the talk of the public for a while, always in the limelight. Sometimes Number Four felt like it was too much – always pulling away and away. Sometimes Number One felt like it wasn’t enough – always wanting and wanting.
For three years, the broken bones, bruised ribs, bloody noses, stab wounds, bullet holes, and overall pain were worth it. All of it. To have a purpose was everything. Thinking – no, knowing – they were making a difference kept them going.
Then came the slew of accidents. The fighting got more and more frequent, whether it was with bad guys, between the children, or with the older Blacks, it didn’t matter. It was all worse.
The Nobel and Most Ancient Black Academy rose and fell with the same fervor.
See, the only thing that could destroy the Black family was itself. It always had to be an inside job. Always. That was the only way this house of cards would be able to fall. The wind could never destabilize them, nor could an earthquake. But cracks formed in the foundations that crept up the support beams could. The shattering of wood in one room could bring the entire house down with ease.
It just needed a catalyst.
The light and fuse were both present, someone just needed to pick it up and spark the damn thing.
It was always going to happen. Some things are inevitable. Like the rotation of the sun. Like the pulling of a trigger. Like the fall of a mighty empire, with nothing to blame but itself.
Some things are predestined.
Actually, a lot of things are predestined. That was what made it all so terrifying.
Number One was the first one to leave.
In a strange way, it was poetic. At least, he always thought it was.
Sirius Black was sixteen when he packed a bag and left. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, fueled by years of building rage and pain, officially sparked by what he came to call the Incident. His stitches were still fresh, pulling at his skin as he shoved his things into a bag.
He could feel Walburga watching him from the top of the stairs when he stormed out of the threshold, throwing the doors open. It was snowing. Flurries rushed into the house, sucked in by the black hole that seemed to have made a home with them. He didn’t look at her. Couldn’t bring himself to.
She didn’t call out for him to stop.
She didn’t say anything at all.
Sirius kept walking. All the way down the street. When he turned the corner, he still didn’t allow himself to cry. He walked several more blocks, no destination in mind, just letting his feet take him wherever his heart led him.
It was no surprise he ended up outside James Potter’s house. James, who’d been his best friend for years now, who knew all the Black children but liked him best.
It was the middle of the night. It was the holiday season.
He wasn’t even sure they would let him in. So many doors had been closed in his face his whole life, and though the Potters had never shut him out, he couldn’t be certain. He couldn’t be certain about anything anymore.
The lights were on. He could hear laughter from deep within the house. That was the only sound that ever seemed to be made in the Potter house. Nothing but joy and love resided there. No black holes. Just the sun.
Sirius could barely bring himself to knock. Knocking meant the Potters might let him, might let him taint their lives and drag them into ruin. He was only capable of pain. He would just hurt them.
But his stitches stung. He was fairly certain one of them had popped.
The bravest thing Number One ever did was not run away. No. The bravest thing he ever did was knock on that door.
Euphemia Potter opened the door without looking out the window, her face warm and inviting.
Standing on that doorstep, Sirius Black was a sight to behold. He was pale from blood loss, shivering and shaking from the cold. His clothes were bloodstained and wet. He could barely hold onto his bag; it was slipping out of his fingers, and only desperation kept it from falling. He looked half dead because he was. He’d nearly died. He still was in danger of doing so.
Effie shrieked, and the sound would haunt him forever.
“Mum?” James called, suddenly appearing around the corner. When he saw Sirius, something in his chest dropped. He ran to his friend, wrapping his arms around him tightly, not caring that blood was getting on him. Sirius collapsed.
Both boys sank to the ground. Sirius was breathing laboriously, his grip on reality eluding him for the second time that night.
Everything went dark slowly. He could hear Effie calling for Fleamont, her husband, sounding terrified and nearly out of her mind. James was crying, his tears slipping onto Sirius’ skin, warm and hot. They were all yelling.
He could hear sirens, as well, but they sounded far off.
Sleep took him under. He was tired of fighting despite it being the only thing he was made for. He was tired of being nothing but what they made him.
When he woke up, IV in his arm, hospital blanket around his chest, heart monitor blinking, it was James who held his hand, not any of the other children. It was James who he finally allowed himself to break in front of, crying for the first time about the whole situation. It was James who heard more of the story than any of the other Potters - heck, he probably knew more than a lot of Sirius’ family despite them being in close proximity to the whole thing.
If tearing apart his life was hard, rebuilding it was somehow harder. Effie and Monty were gracious and loving parents, something Sirius was endlessly grateful for. They gave him room to make mistakes without punishing him cruelly and allowed him to succeed without dragging him down.
The media was beyond curious about what had happened that night, about what had forced Number One to run. But Sirius gave them no hints, and the rest of the Black Academy refused to soil their name, so nothing was ever leaked – at least, not about this. Toujours pur, and all.
Sirius enrolled in school to get his A-Levels when he could – both he and James went to the same place. It was there he met Remus Lupin, and his life was never the same.
See, Remus didn’t care about the shit Sirius had been through. He didn’t think it made him difficult or unlovable. Remus thought Sirius was made for more than just fighting, and for the first time, he believed it. He learned how to speak without snapping, using his words to soothe and to love. He learned how to touch without causing harm, slowly understanding that hands were made to hold and be held, not crush or break or maim. He learned that love wasn’t a privilege or a weapon, that it didn’t even have to be earned. It just was.
It took a year or so for them to get together. They were seventeen, almost eighteen. Love felt invincible. Love felt unbreakable. Love felt like a shield, for once, and Sirius was more than happy to use it.
Remus was there when everything Sirius had learned was suddenly unlearned following another Incident with one of the other children. He was there to hold him and to shelter him through it all. Though patience was never one of his strengths, no one would have ever been able to tell. He was gentle and unwavering in his adoration.
Sirius, who had previously concluded that he was deserving of happiness and devotion, was suddenly unable to understand it all once more. He had always considered himself to be a poison. A drop of black in a sea of white paint; a mistake that could never be erased; a black hole wherever he went, having inherited that trait from that stupid manor. He was always in that house. He was always in that moment, always standing on the threshold waiting for her to beg him to come back.
But it got better.
Slowly, surely, it got better.
He moved out of the Potter’s house. He and Remus bought an apartment and moved in together. James got one just down the street. Peter, his childhood friend, split the rent with him, taking up the other bedroom.
Cygnus died. Sirius wasn’t invited to the funeral. That was fine. He still got an inheritance, though it was a small chunk of money compared to what the others got, so he knew it was a “fuck you” from the afterlife. He didn’t mind. Money was money. The old man really should’ve just not given him anything if he wanted to make a point.
Sirius turned twenty-one, and then twenty-two. And, somehow, by some miracle sent from above, he managed to turn twenty-three as well.
Twenty-four was different than the other ages. He didn’t know why. He figured it just felt more adult. It was laced with more responsibility than other ages. Heavier, he supposed.
On his birthday, he blew out the candles on his cake surrounded by friends. There was James and Peter, who hadn’t been roommates for quite some time now. Marlene, Mary, and Lily were there, all friends he’d made during school or met through mutual friends. And Remus, of course. There were people missing, but he tried not to think of them, knowing it would only drag him down. Birthdays were not about mourning. Birthdays were about celebration. He could be sad after the clock rolled over into the fourth of November.
The year ended on a high note with a New Year’s party at Marlene and her girlfriend Dorcas’ place. Sirius had been happy and drunk. When the clock struck Midnight, he kissed Remus, feeling like a teenager once again.
The early months of the year were boring, simultaneously crawling and speeding by at the same time. January and February were normal. Cold, but normal.
On the night of the twentieth of March, Sirius and Remus were walking home from dinner. They'd decided not to take a car since the restaurant was close enough to their place. It was good. They'd gotten dessert, which they normally didn’t do, but the crème brûlée looked to die for, and they couldn’t just pass that up.
To get back to their place, they had to pass a television store. Now, usually, the store played commercials on a loop, and they were always fun to glance at, but they were never really something to pay attention to.
So, like he did every time they walked by the place, Sirius glanced at the television screens, expecting something colorful and bright, advertising cereal or something.
It was a news channel tonight, though.
The headline at the bottom: BILLIONAIRES ORION AND WALBURGA BLACK BOTH FOUND DEAD IN THE BLACK MANOR
Number Two was the second to leave.
In a strange way, it felt poetic. Just another way to prove secondary status.
Regulus Black didn’t mean to leave. It was an accident. Truly.
The two years after Sirius left were miserable for all of them. It was the pinnacle moment that led to the crumbling of the Black family empire. It was the pinnacle moment that led to everything falling apart, including Regulus himself.
It was an accident.
One day, Regulus Black was eighteen and hopeful. He’d got into the Royal Academy of Music all on his own. He only told one person. One. He didn’t even get to revel in his accomplishment before everything went wrong.
One day, Regulus Black disappeared. He regretted it every day after.
Now here is where the pattern breaks. Number Four always knew she was different than the others – knew she valued creation over destruction and fostered love in her heart rather than hate. So, because of these differences, she also knew she’d be the first one to break the count, the pattern, of those who left. One. Two. And Four.
Andromeda Black’s last straw was Regulus. They weren’t particularly close – it was Sirius that she liked best out of both boys – but he was still family. When he disappeared, Walburga broke. She became crueler than ever. Her heart had been rotten for a while, but it seemed all the decaying had finally made it completely hollow.
She couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t do it.
Andromeda had a secret, and it came in the form of Ted Tonks. She’d met him when she was fifteen and she’d loved him ever since. Twice a week, she’d slip out of the Black manor to go and visit him, taking the tube. He was so lovely. No one had ever treated her like she was fragile. No one had ever held her like she was incapable of harm.
So, two months after Regulus’ funeral, Andromeda showed up on Ted’s doorstep with her bags and tears streaming down her face. She was eighteen, so it wasn’t technically running away, not anymore. But it felt like it. It felt like an escape, a mad dash for freedom. It also felt like a crime.
Some nights, she tried to go back. She was sick with guilt, filled with a strange longing to return to the world of cruelty simply because it was so familiar. She missed Number Three and Number Five. She missed Druella, the robot nurse who was more of a caretaker to her than any of the other adults.
Ted wouldn’t let her leave. It was for the best, really, but she would get so angry with him. She’d scream and cry and threaten. She'd throw furniture at his head, trash the entire house, and threaten to toss him out the window. Though she was terrifying, he was never afraid. He was never afraid.
To be treated so well, to be trusted so much, it was overwhelming.
There were months full of physically restraining her, holding her back from launching herself out the door and running back. Ted would tell her over and over again that she was better off here, better off without them. He'd beg and bargain for her to stay just another night, to think about it longer.
Slowly, the panic in her chest lessened. The desperate need to return subsided. She could make it through a week, now, without trying to leave.
Andromeda would always be grateful for Ted’s steadiness. He was unwilling to flinch around her, and never allowed himself to put guards up. He once told her there was no need to be anything but open and vulnerable with her, and that he trusted her completely no matter what she did. She cried, so grateful he could see something in her that she couldn’t see in herself.
He proposed only a few months later, and then they were married. It was a private wedding. They brought Ted’s parents to be witnesses and hired an officiant. She wore a plain white dress, something simple, and clutched a bouquet of daffodils. They read off small vows, kissed and signed the documents, then escaped to the beach for their honeymoon.
She didn’t think she could ever be happier.
Then the pregnancy test came back positive.
Her pregnancy was hard, though she would never admit it to anyone but Ted. Whenever she thought about being a mother, memories of Cygnus, Orion, and Walburga would flood in. She was going to ruin the baby. She was going to be just like them. Ted assured her it wasn’t true, but there was always terror humming under her veins whenever she thought about it too long.
Sometime during her pregnancy, Cygnus died. Andromeda wasn’t invited to the funeral, and that didn’t matter to her, not really. She got a sum of money, maybe as an apology, maybe as an afterthought. Either way, it didn’t matter. They used the money to renovate the nursery.
Andromeda didn’t cry when he died. She couldn’t bring herself to. Sure, she grieved, but she had better things to be doing. Mourning him was just a waste of time at this point. Especially when it had been made clear that she wasn’t invited or entitled to anything regarding him.
In September of that year, Andromeda gave birth. Nymphadora was a beautiful baby girl. She rarely cried. She rarely complained. She was perfect in every way. Everyone always said she looked just like Ted, but Andromeda secretly thought she and Dora looked nearly identical. They had the same nose and the same large eyes. Ted was inclined to agree with her, but strangers never seemed to see it.
She occasionally thought about seeking out the others. Sirius, she knew, would love Dora. He was always good with kids when they were younger. Regulus, on the other hand, was horrible with them. She laughed, imagining what he would do if she was able to hand Dora to him. Number Three and Number Five would have found the baby fun, especially Number Five, who had once secretly confessed to Nymphadora that she wanted to be a mother. Neither of the girls thought they were made for it – violence and cruelty were too heavily engraved in them. But Andromeda didn’t feel that way so much anymore.
She didn’t contact them. But they never contacted her either.
After Cygnus died, the Black Academy wasn’t heard from much. They were quieter. Things had changed. Andromeda wondered whether the others had left or not, and if they were still there, what they were going through.
She turned twenty-one with a baby tucked to her chest, and it was the happiest birthday she ever had.
Until twenty-two. Twenty-two was a happy birthday. Dora had started babbling more and more, and as a birthday gift to Andromeda, she said her first word: “Mama!” She said it happily, quickly following it up with a giggle like she knew what she was doing.
Twenty-three was good as well. Ted had gotten a raise, so they’d moved into a nicer flat that year. They had a spare bedroom now, but no one ever stayed over except his parents. Number Five had been on the cover of a magazine that year, so Andromeda knew she was alive and well. She must’ve moved out of the manor. Andromeda knew Number Three had left as well; an interview had been published online, and then a few more articles followed it up. Neither of the girls mentioned the other. They didn’t mention anyone at all. That was fine. Dora had long since started walking, but now she was officially starting to run away from them, laughing the whole time, even when it wasn’t all that funny for them.
Twenty-four came and went quickly. In truth, she didn’t really remember that birthday. A lot was going on at the time. By the holidays, things slowed down. They had Ted’s parents over for Christmas. On New Year's Eve, they celebrated at home, alone, and happy.
January and February were filled with the chaos only a toddler could bring. Dora was developing a snippy personality and she’d grown impossibly stubborn. Sometimes, when she watched Dora for too long, she only saw the others. Dora had the same will as Number One, the same laugh as Number Three, the same deep knowledge residing in her eyes as Number Five, and the same scowl as Number Two. Even though she wasn’t actually related to the others by blood, somehow her daughter had inherited parts of them. She didn’t know how to feel about it.
On the night of the twentieth of March, Andromeda and Ted were trying to convince Dora to eat her vegetables. She refused. It didn’t matter how much they bribed her, she wouldn’t give in. Andromeda was growing tired.
In the living room, they had the television on. It had gotten increasingly loud throughout the dinner, and she was getting annoyed by it.
“I’m going to turn that down,” she told Ted, standing up.
She went into the living room and picked up the remote. Before she turned the volume down, something told her to just watch. It was just a commercial right now, but she felt a need to pay attention.
Then, a news broadcast broke in.
The banner on the bottom read: BILLIONAIRES ORION AND WALBURGA BLACK BOTH FOUND DEAD IN THE BLACK MANOR
Number Three and Number Five left together, on the night of Cygnus’ funeral.
Though they drove out of there together, they split early, both going in different directions. Number Five was driving.
They’d stolen one of the cars Cygnus used to own to leave. Number Three called it an advanced claim to their inheritance. Number Five just called it stealing, but she had no qualms about it.
Number Five didn’t even come to a full stop as Bellatrix hopped out of the car. The second Bellatrix had her feet on the ground, the other girl sped off, going God knows where.
Bellatrix wandered through the dark Midnight streets of London without a care in the world. Cygnus was dead. She was done, out, no longer coming back. She’d just been waiting for an opportunity, for Number Five to get enough courage to leave with her. And then it came. Everything was better without that son of a bitch.
If Bellatrix had told her sixteen-year-old self that she would’ve left the Black Academy when she was twenty, her younger self would’ve scoffed. She looked down so harshly on Number One for leaving, for being a coward. Over the four years she was locked in that house, she realized it was only cowardly to stay.
They were terrified of her there.
They didn’t let her do anything.
She'd snapped when she was thirteen once. Once. Pushed over the edge by their constant prodding and studying, probably ruined by something they did to her. And ever since then, it was the only way they would listen to her, the only way they would leave her alone. She would scream for attention. Would throw shit around when she wanted to be alone, fully aware they were going to lock her in the padded room in the basement they’d built for her. She'd drag her nails through the others’ skin just so they would look at her. Look at her, dammit.
Now, there was no one around to look at her.
She cackled to herself in the street, her laugh echoing back at her. Anyone looking out the window probably thought she was drunk out of her mind, or maybe just crazy.
Once, she’d looked it up in Orion’s library. Madness. Craziness. Insanity. She tried to figure out what it really meant, tried to understand why they pinned it so readily to her, and made those words define her. She didn’t quite like the definitions, but what she did like were the annotations. There, scribbled in the margins, Orion wrote about the Black family curse. Though the Black children weren’t related to the Black seniors, it pleased her to see the “3” carefully written after it.
So yeah, they’d probably fucked her up, but she didn’t really care. She wasn’t really that crazy. Was she? Do crazy people know they’re crazy?
She walked until she found a payphone and called a hospital, asking for directions so she could check herself into the psychiatric unit. They decided to pick her up in an ambulance, encouraging her to stay put, but she didn’t have time for that. She decided to walk there instead.
They found her roaming the streets and took her in.
After maybe an hour, she was incredibly bored of the whole thing. It took a great deal of manipulation and flattery on her end, but she managed to convince the doctors she was fine, and they let her go. Maybe her real powers were persuasion.
She left the hospital, the plastic band still around her wrist, just as the sun was rising. She hadn’t slept for probably twenty-four hours, but she wasn’t tired, so she didn’t mind.
She wanted to call Number Five, but the bitch didn’t give her a number to dial.
Bellatrix took the tube down into the heart of London, jumping over the turnstile on the way in and out. After searching for a little bit, she found a bank and withdrew a large sum of money, hoping to find a place to sleep for a while. She took the first apartment she found, which turned out to be incredibly shady considering they let her sign and move in that day.
She had no furniture, nothing at all. Just a bare bedroom, an empty living room, and a kitchen with nothing but a working tap and a hollow refrigerator. She slept on the floor, curled up in a pool of sunlight leaking in from the window, and slept for sixteen hours.
Through the years, Bellatrix moved around a lot. There was something restless in her, something unquenchable and forever longing to roam. She couldn’t put a name to the feeling, couldn’t offer up an explanation. It just was. Luckily Cygnus had left her a great deal of money in the will. She spent it carelessly on whatever she wanted, willing to throw away his money as fast as she could.
She turned twenty-one smoking on the fire escape in silence, staring up at the stars. She could spot her own star easily enough; it was across from Betelgeuse, connecting to Orion’s arm. Druella had taught them all enough about the stars that Bellatrix could now name most of the constellations. It was impressive but useless knowledge. She wanted to cut her brain out. She wanted to cut Druella’s brain or lack-there-of – they were never quite sure how the robot nurse worked – and see what she was like inside. Maybe she could fabricate herself after that.
She missed Number Four. She wouldn’t admit it, though.
At night, Bellatrix would get filled with a strange longing for the others. She'd remember their youth, when they’d complete missions per Cygnus, Orion, and Walburga’s request, always garnering the attention of the press.
People loved them.
People respected them.
People feared them.
In Bellatrix’s experience, those three were all synonymous.
At night, she’d seek out fights. Wander the streets and wait for someone to mess with her. Then she’d beat the ever-loving shit out of them, letting her body do whatever it desired, letting her mind go quiet for once. She'd go to pubs and rile the angry drinkers, begging them to hit her, to yell at her, to pay attention to her.
Bellatrix turned twenty-two while drunk and giggling in the bed of a certain blonde named Rita Skeeter. Drunkenly, she confessed things. Lots of things. Rita, the snake, published it all to jumpstart her career as a celebrity journalist. Bellatrix didn’t see her again after the article came out.
She didn’t see anyone anymore.
She convinced herself she was invisible, at one point, and broke down in the middle of the aisle at a produce store when someone finally made eye contact with her.
There were more articles about that, this time about her supposed insanity. There that word was again, correlated with her once more, pinned on her like a badge yet again. She didn’t mind.
Once the journalists had finally breached the gap with one of the Black children, they were desperate for more. She knew they bothered the others relentlessly, begging for a comment on their childhood. She wasn’t immune to it either, so she refused to feel bad. Besides, it wasn’t like they got anything after the initial accidental confession. She never slipped up again. It kind of felt like her girlhood once again – the silence, the plastered smiles, the made-up stories for the press.
Twenty-three was as calm as it could be. Bellatrix hated it.
She was more self-destructive than ever that year, that much she could admit. She called Orion weekly just to yell at him. He always answered, which just pissed her off even more.
She taunted her way into more fights, desperate to save the day once more, always wanting to be celebrated.
She saw Sirius at the market. He didn’t see her. She didn’t go back there again.
In truth, she didn’t remember twenty-three very well, mostly because it was immemorable. Nothing drastic happened. Nothing life-altering. It just was. She felt like it dragged on and on.
Turning twenty-four was bitter and lonely. She'd grown used to not having anyone to celebrate with – hell, she’d grown used to not celebrating at all. But Bellatrix decided to get a cake for herself this year. She sat on her fire escape, shivering in the cold, and sang to herself, laughing merrily to scare away the sad ache creeping into her chest. She let the candle melt, the cheap wax dripping onto the frosting.
The holidays were fine but cold. She forgot to pay her heating bill, so she sat shivering for the entire month of December, curled up in blankets. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it. She stopped calling Orion. She talked to herself instead, ranting to nobody about the littlest things.
January and February brought nothing with them. She survived through the intense boredom, somehow able to keep herself together to see March.
March was when everything changed.
On the twentieth of March, Bellatrix was flirting with a woman at the pub, hoping she’d get a free drink out of it when the television cut to a news broadcast. She didn’t pay attention to it, too focused on getting her drink until the woman gasped and pointed at the television.
There, on the bottom of the screen, ran a thick banner declaring the good news:
BILLIONAIRES ORION AND WALBURGA BLACK BOTH FOUND DEAD IN THE BLACK MANOR
After Narcissa drove off, leaving Bellatrix on the side of the street, she went directly to the flat she’d started renting the month before. Though it was Cygnus’ death that finally drove her away, she’d been getting more and more ready to leave, waiting for the final push. His death had been it. After the funeral, she was done.
Narcissa always suspected she would be the last to leave that house. She was fond of it, in a way. Though the Black seniors were never particularly nice, and though she considered herself to be an outlier among the children, they were still a family to her. A fucked up, completely demented family, but a family, nonetheless.
When Sirius ran away at sixteen, something in her had started to shrivel. He hadn’t said goodbye – not that he particularly liked her. No, it was Regulus who seemed to prefer her out of anyone else. They understood each other, in a weird way. He was the spare; she was the odd one out. Both were rejected, in a way, by the Black seniors. It gave them ground to connect as children. But he hadn’t said goodbye either.
And after Andromeda left without a word, she took it to mean that something was intrinsically wrong with her.
Narcissa had been set up for failure since she was born. She'd been declared Number Five, been given a power everyone was wary of, and on top of that, she was the only one Druella didn’t name after a constellation. From the very beginning, she was an outsider.
Once, she’d asked Druella why she couldn’t have an astronomy-inspired name like the others. Druella had said it was because she was special. Narcissa didn’t believe that for a minute. The only explanation had to be her eternal misfortune.
When the others left, Cygnus, Orion, and Walburga barely paid attention to her. She was eighteen, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. They were too busy tiptoeing around Bellatrix to notice her, but that much had been true for as long as she could remember.
Sometimes, when Narcissa got especially lonesome, she’d use her powers to create illusions of the others. Regulus would sit with her on her bed, just listening to her talk with the same blank look he usually had, or sometimes a faint frown that she used to smooth out teasingly with her thumb. Andromeda would let her braid her hair. Though she couldn’t feel the silky strands sliding through her fingers, she pretended she did, fully immersing herself in her illusion. Sirius would judge her from the doorframe while she and Regulus read in the library.
One time, Walburga had stumbled across an illusion of Sirius that Narcissa had put up – he was curled up and napping on the couch. She'd promptly screamed, freaking out and breaking down. Orion had come rushing in to berate Narcissa harshly, losing his voice in the process of yelling for so long. She'd held a strong front until she escaped to her room and promptly burst into tears.
She missed the other children as one might miss a lung, but she knew they probably didn’t think about her at all. Bellatrix was the only one she had left. Regulus was probably dead. Sirius and Andromeda had moved on to better things.
After Narcissa found out Cygnus died, she burst into delighted laughter. Walburga promptly backhanded her across the face. Her ring caught Narcissa’s cheek, slicing it open upon impact. The blood had dripped onto her shirt, and she was never able to get the stain out.
After the funeral, she grabbed Bellatrix and left, taking all her things with her. Though she had a strange love for that place, she was never going back. She’d much rather reminisce over the few positive memories she had.
She brought her things to the apartment, carrying each box inside. It was sad and empty when it was all put together, but it was hers. She kept Cygnus’ car. He was dead, so there was no way for him to miss it. Though Orion and Walburga probably could’ve pressed charges against her for stealing, they never did, granting her a nugget of kindness almost as an apology for her entire girlhood.
Moving out did not cure her loneliness. Instead, it made it worse.
There was no way for her to contact the others, not that they ever made an effort to try reaching out either. She didn’t even try to keep in touch with Bellatrix. It was better this way, she thought. There would be fewer arguments, fewer fights.
When she was twenty-one, she decided to try and find her birth mother. When she was younger, she’d always harbored this feeling that some woman was out there, devastated that she had given up her daughter to Cygnus Black so many years ago. She probably had a beautiful name picked out for her, something that was stitched into her blankets and written delicately on the bottom of her baby pictures. She was probably blonde and beautiful and lovely. She was probably young, terrified to have given birth to a child she’d never planned on having.
After months of endless searching, she found nothing. There were no records of who responded to the newspaper ads. No interviews with the Sacred Twenty-Eight. All their identities had been kept under wraps following the realization that their children were more powerful and other-worldly than could’ve been imagined.
Narcissa was heartbroken. The only person who had those records was Cygnus, and now he was dead. Orion and Walburga must’ve had them now, but she didn’t want to reach out to them and ask. They would probably just lie.
So, she gave up on that pipe dream, though the hope of finding her mother never left her. It hummed in her chest, a constant white noise that begged to be listened to and indulged in.
She turned twenty-two with no one around to see it. And then, just a few weeks later, she met a beautiful, powerful man named Lucius Malfoy who swept her off her feet. He was rich, the son of one of the most powerful businessmen in the United Kingdom. The business was promised to him when his father retired. Though this didn’t really matter to her, it added to his appeal.
He was an amazing lover for the time being. He took her to parties and paraded her around on his arm, introducing her to too many people to even remember. She was adored by his circle – she was beautiful and smart and ethereal, so why wouldn’t she be? They thought she was incredible, but they were oddly obsessed with the Black Academy. No matter how much they annoyed her, she never reminded them that she could kill them easily. She'd been trained for it since they bought her. It didn’t matter to her that these were some of London’s most influential business leaders, everyone was mortal at the end of the day. She would just have to figure out how to get rid of the bodies without raising suspicion.
After six months of dating, Lucius encouraged Narcissa to move in with him. She was more than happy to do so. The Malfoy manor was beautiful, but it was swarming with reminders of the Black manor. Sometimes she didn’t know which threshold she was standing on, which library she was curled up in, or which hallway she was wandering down. Her memories blurred. She never told Lucius.
When she was sad with him, she’d create an illusion of happiness over her face. He never was able to tell when something was real or not. Regulus, who was the only one always able to tell when something was an illusion or not, probably would’ve snorted and thought him to be stupid. Maybe he would be right. But regardless, he was pretty and rich, which canceled it all out. And he was lovely to her for a while.
On her twenty-third birthday, he threw her a party with all their friends. It was the first birthday party she’d ever had. For some reason, she’d started crying, pulling him into another room with her to thank him graciously. He'd just smiled and kissed the tears from her cheeks.
A few months later, after having been together for only a little over a year, Lucius had proposed. He told her he’d never met anyone like her, and that he was determined to love her until the end of the world.
The wedding was a little gauche, but they were happy for a while.
Lucius’ father died a couple of months after the wedding, so he took over the company. His mother had been dead for years. When he first told her that, she’d immediately wished she had a mother to mourn.
Their marriage was good for a while. Until it wasn’t.
It only confirmed Narcissa’s fears that she wasn’t meant for good things.
On her twenty-fourth birthday, Lucius threw another party. It was all champagne flutes and drunken love confessions and violet and blue and green.
For Christmas that year, Narcissa did something entirely for herself for once. No one else knew about it. No one else needed to know about it. It was just for her, just to grant her some peace of mind. It was hard but it was worth it. A gift for her alone.
She just needed to pull it off.
January was stressful as she worked to figure things out, but February was calm in the wake of everything.
On the twentieth of March, Narcissa received two of the best notifications she’d ever gotten. The first was something private, something best kept in the dark, harbored away and gently catered to. The second was a notification about a name she’d flagged as having been used online. The article read:
BILLIONAIRES ORION AND WALBURGA BLACK BOTH FOUND DEAD IN THE BLACK MANOR